Exploring the Best 7 Garden Sights in a Journey Through Morocco

Exploring Morocco's Enchanting Gardens: A Week-Long Journey

Morocco, a land of rich history, vibrant culture, and breathtaking landscapes, offers a unique experience for those seeking a connection with nature. In a week-long visit, one can immerse themselves in the country's floral paradise, discovering the artistry, generosity, and resilience of its people.

The journey began with a visit to the Jardin Secret in Marrakech, a redesigned former Saadian dynasty garden and 19th-century palatial riad, opened to the public in 2016 by Tom Stuart Smith. The garden features a four-part, geometric Islamic design, with running water channels that facilitate irrigation and the creation of a sacred space. Soft sensory arrangements of aromatic herbs and clumping grasses, gentle water features, and shade-creating rows of lemon and orange trees provide a serene and relaxing atmosphere. Multiple places to sit quietly, take lunch, or hang out with friends make Jardin Secret an ideal spot for a peaceful retreat.

A short drive from Marrakech lies the Jardin Majorelle, a garden renowned for its cobalt blue and yellow Moorish-Art Deco aesthetic and a variety of succulents and cacti. First established in 1924 by the French artist Jaques Majorelle, the garden also houses the Musé Berbére, offering a greater insight into indigenous Moroccan culture, including historic gardening practices and plants.

The botanical paradise Jardin des Douars, located a twenty-minute drive from Essaouira and its airport, showcases a diverse array of plants. From plumbago and hibiscus to African milk trees, succulents, palms, pomegranate, lemon, orange, and fig trees, red hot pokers, eglantine roses, and fountain grass, the garden provides a visual feast for plant enthusiasts. The entrance to Jardin des Douars is via an avenue of multi-hued bougainvillea and palm trees.

The Ourika Valley Tour offers a glimpse into the rural life of Morocco. A 2-hour hike through dusty, red-earth landscape, dotted with agaves and juniper, leads to an Amazigh/Berber homestead. The tour also includes a visit to Poterie Amassine, a local terracotta co-operative, and witnessing an impressive network of irrigation channels designed to direct mountain water onto lush green fields.

The final stop on the botanical tour was the Anima Garden, created by Austrian artist André Heller. Featuring exotic vegetation, flowers, grasses, a large pond, and immersive seating areas, the garden also houses sculptures by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Auguste Rodin. The Anima Garden is perfect for all ages.

In Essaouira, the journey continued with visits to gardens that showcased ingenious ways of harnessing limited water supplies and native, drought-tolerant plants to create lush green oases in arid desert and on bare mountains. Jardin Bio Aromatique, located in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, is a charming herb garden that provides work for local women and grows plants for the extraction of essential oils.

The week concluded with a visit to Jnane Tamsna, a hotel in Marrakech, boasting plant-inspired interiors and grounds designed by Meryanne Loum-Martin and her American ethnobotanist husband Gary Martin. The hotel features a rainwater-run off raised serpentine walkway, an olive tree-lined courtyard, areas for growing food and herbs, and irrigation experiments.

This immersive tour of Moroccan history, culture, and people, as well as its flowers and plants, offers a unique and unforgettable experience for those seeking a connection with nature and the rich tapestry of Moroccan life.